25 Answers

I’ve never heard of that. But, I take honey religiously while sick, because it makes my sore throat and cough better. I put quite a bit of it into my tea, and it makes me feel better. If I was sick enough to need antibiotics, I’d be at the doctors.

No no no. You don’t do that at all. Antibiotics are drugs. Honey is a sugary substance.

Plus, in those articles I get the strong suspicion they are applying the honey on top of a wound, not taking it orally as an antibiotic. And it is likely being done in conjunction with other drugs, or medical supervision at least.

Your second link is totally different, completely different other than it involves honey. I don’t think it’s smart to include it in your discussion about the antibacterial usage.

I don’t recommend doing this at all if you have a serious desire to keep living.

guys, everyone has heard the myths about homeopathic remedies being ineffective. if you keep up, however, and do your research you’ll learn that things seem to be shifting.

and yes, the regular medical community is great. but no they don’t have the BEST ideas all the time. you have to do some research otherwise, you’ll find doctors saying to you: “oh, there’s nothing you can do for that” when there actually is.. or “you have to take this expensive pill” when you really don’t.

do yourself a favor next time you have any kind of an ailment. get your doctor’s opinion. then take what you learn from him and do your own research on the flipside. often you’ll be surprised by what you learn if you just care about your body a little bit and do some in-depth research yourself.

I have done a lot of research into homeopathic medicine and have a family friend who specializes in it. I would never put my health in the hands of unproven techniques, simply put. I care about my body too much to do such risky things.

I would like to see your proof that homeopathic remedies are somehow shifting in recent times to become effective. Otherwise, you have no basis to make that claim.

oh. i can’t wait to see what the doctors on fluther have to say to that.

i’m all about doing things naturally, and i don’t see doctors unless something is very, very wrong (that’s more because i don’t have health insurance) we try natural rememdies, but there’s a reason we have all these wonderful drugs..like penicillin for example. I do always try to make myself better first, but I’m glad we have the technology we have.

wait.. no one said anything against doctors. they do a fine job make no mistake.
they just don’t know everything there is to know about your health. they miss some ideas for sure.

anyway, @dynamicduo download the movie Food Matters. no, i don’t stand behind everything they say in that vid, but i definitely approve of the genreal idea about our failing health and the Nutritional deficiencies that the medical and agriculture community tends to ignore.

the medical community generally treats symptoms rather than addressing causes of problems.

they study and learn how to deal with symptoms. which is great and useful.. but it would be MORE useful if society focused on perfect health from the start so that diseases don’t show up in the first place to need treatment.

“Honey is a saturated or supersaturated solution of sugars that has strong interaction with water molecules. The lack of ‘free’ water inhibits the growth of microorganisms” when used as a topical preparation on wounds. Source

Honey does not work as an antibiotic, it works as an antimicrobial. Big difference.

Ancient Egyptians used honey on wounds to help healing. It’s not an oral anti-biotic. Though it can help a sore throat. When I am starting to feel sick I boil some water and put some sliced ginger root, some honey, and fresh lemon juice—- works every time.

On a serious note, before people go placing honey on wounds, you should know that honey has been associated with infant botulism when honey has been given to children less than one year old. Botulism is a life-threatening disease due to the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, and Clostridium botulinum spores can be readily found in honey.

Another classic form of botulism is wound botulism, also caused by the same bacterium. So, if you grabbed some raw honey (which could easily have Clostridium spores in it) and placed it on or into a wound, you might then give yourself a potentially fatal disease.

@shilolo whoa, I didn’t know you could get botulism from it entering a wound. Would you have to have a wound, or just skin contact..? Skin contact doesn’t make sense though.
I was so paranoid about infant botulism. My husband gets pure honey from a guy who owns I dunno, a beehive I guess, lol. I was scared our son or I would get botulism. I don’t think it matters where the honey comes from though, right?

@casheroo. It really doesn’t matter where it comes from, but it is certainly worse to get it unprocessed from a local vendor (I doubt they do any QC, for example). Wound botulism has been around for centuries. Typically it occurs from a dirty, contaminated wound that is inoculated with spores. Most of the cases we see now are in intravenous or subcutaneous drug users injecting black tar heroin. I have personally seen a few cases myself.